Month: December 2014

In this photograph taken on Thursday, Nov. 20, 2014, plastic marijuna leaves light a Christmas tree as part of holiday display in a recreational marijuana shop in northwest Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Support it or not, there’s no denying that this was a watershed year for marijuana, reports the Washington Post in this comprehensive overview.

Within hours of the new year, the nation saw the first legally sanctioned sales of marijuana for recreational use in modern history. Throughout, states considered and often passed expanding access to the drug and, as recently as last weekend, Congress was interfering in D.C.’s pot policies and promising to stay out of the states.

Based on exchanges with pot advocates, we rounded up 22 of the most significant moments for marijuana in 2014, most of them advancing the cause though the list includes a few notable setbacks.

Soon after Denver Relief, a pot dispensary, won a quality competition with its Bio-Diesel strain, it started seeing the name used by competitors with lower-quality strains all around the city.

Legendary pot lifestyle magazine High Times filed a lawsuit last year against a Washington festival, NW Harvest Fest, for using the term “Cannabis Cup,” a term coined by the publication, for a local competition.

“Perhaps one of the most significant hurdles facing investors in marijuana business is the lack of protections for intellectual property,” Aaron Houston, strategist for Weedmaps, a listings and review site for marijuana dispensaries around the U.S., told International Business Times.

Since marijuana is illegal on the federal level, the government will not approve a trademark that is for marijuana, reports The Leaf Online.

However, it is possible to register a trademark relating to marijuana.

There are many registered trademarks that are related to marijuana, but none of them list marijuana as a sold good.

For instance, the magazine “High Times” is a registered trademark, however, it lists “magazines about hemp” as its class. There are several businesses that have accomplished registering a trademark this way, yet the fact still remains that businesses selling only marijuana will have more than the normal amount of difficulty trying to register a mark.

A close-up view of a hemp plant cut down on Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2014, at a University of Kentucky farm near Lexington. The close cousin to marijuana is seen as a potential cash crop in the state. The long-banned crop’s advocates hope its the start of turning hemp mainstream. (AP Photo/Dylan Lovan)

SALEM ­— The Oregon Department of Agriculture is nearing a deadline to create rules for hemp growers, reports The Bend Bulletin.

The rule-making process has been slow, with newly written draft rules coming more than five years after the Legislature legalized hemp. A review of the rules shows the state still needs to make changes to ensure license holders are protected from federal interference if farmers get seeds in the ground in spring 2015.

After taking what advocates call a cautious approach to writing the hemp rules, the department now needs the Legislature to quickly change the hemp law, which as written threatens to stifle the industry in Oregon while other states have already had successful growing seasons.

“They just seem to be like a deer in the headlights,” Eric Steenstra, president of the hemp advocacy group Vote Hemp, said of the state’s slow movement on hemp.

Part of the reason for the state’s slow progress is the danger of licensing farmers to plant a crop that has been illegal federally since 1970 because it’s in the marijuana family. There has been a possibility that the federal government could bust farmers who grow hemp despite Oregon legalizing it.

“Industrial Hemp is a new commodity for us, and a new program had to be developed around meeting state and federal restrictions,” said Ron Pence, manager of the state’s commodity inspection division. “And this has been challenging.”

Seventeen other states have legalized the plant, which has nearly no psychoactive ingredients and is grown for its durable fibers, oil, clothing and seeds.

While 23 states have legalized medical marijuana and four states have now voted to legalize recreational use, Congress has yet to change official drug policy. But it has added guidelines to help protect growers in hemp-friendly states.

Colorado voters legalized hemp and recreational marijuana in 2012. It remains the only other state that regulates the three cannabis industries, including medical and recreational marijuana. But Colorado has been much quicker to grow a hemp industry after putting rules in place for an inaugural growing season in 2014.

The rush came with some setbacks, said Duane Sinning, seed coordinator of the program in Colorado. Some farmers were using the hemp program as a shield from the scrutiny applied to marijuana growers, Sinning said. Colorado is amending its guidelines to close loopholes.

Congressmen from Oregon and Kentucky added a provision to the 2014 Farm Bill that effectively separated hemp grown for research by agriculture departments and educational institutions from marijuana.

Lawmakers then put another provision into the $1.1 trillion spending bill that passed last week that prohibits the Drug Enforcement Administration and Justice Department from prosecuting farmers who grow hemp as extensions of the research programs.

Lawmakers will consider the intermediate step of decriminalization next year following the legalization of pot in Oregon, Alaska and Washington D.C.

Legislation drafted by Rep. Helene Keeley, D-Wilmington, would replace criminal penalties for possession of small amounts of marijuana, with fines similar to those for speeding or running a red light.

And national pot activists are hoping Delaware won’t stop there.

It is one of a dozen states being targeted for reform by the Marijuana Policy Project, where officials predict that full legalization – taxing and regulating sales of the drug – is possible by 2017. The group, optimistic after a September University of Delaware survey showed 56 percent of Delaware residents support legalization, has hired a lobbyist and plans to mobilize supporters to contact Delaware lawmakers early in the new year.

Meanwhile, Delaware’s first medical marijuana dispensary will open in April after a four-year-long delay that has left patients in pot purgatory. Mark Lally, president of the First State Compassion Center, which will operate the dispensary, says construction at 37 Germay Drive south of Wilmington is ongoing.

More than 160 Delawareans now carry state IDs that allow them to smoke the drug to treat a variety of illnesses, without having any legal means of purchasing it. They pay $125 in annual fees to the state for the privilege.

Draft regulations published earlier this month for New York state’s medical marijuana program are leaving pro-drug activists calling for more.

Only doctors and pharmacists who undergo four hours of training would be allowed to dispense the drug — and then only in vapor, pill or liquid form — when it becomes legal in 2016, reports the Staten Island Advance.

It will take at least another year for marijuana to get to patients, and only patients with one of 10 medical conditions will be allowed the drug, reports Capital New York. Other conditions may be added during 2015.

Only people with one of ten specified medical conditions would be allowed to buy cannabis products, after getting certified by a doctor and qualifying for an ID card, which would cost $50.

Specially approved organizations — such as hospitals or community health centers — will dispense the medical marijuana to registered patients, under DOH supervision, according to Compassionate Care New York.

How Do Patients Qualify to Be Part of the Program?

Must be resident of NY or is being treated in NY.

Must be being treated in NY for the condition for which you are seeking medical marijuana.

Must be certified by a NY physician who has registered with DOH to recommend medical marijuana (means that the doctor has completed a 2-4 hour training course and filed pipework with the DOH).

Must be under that doctor’s care for the condition for which you are seeking medical marijuana

Your doctor must believe and be willing to certify that you will receive some therapeutic or palliative benefit from medical marijuana.

Must have a “serious condition,” as defined by the law.

Must obtain a registry identification card from the Department of Health (DOH) and carry their patient registry card at all times that they are in

Patients could have up to two caregivers help them get the cannabis medicine, but they would have to be approved by the state.

The Compassionate Care Act, which became law in July, is one of the more tightly regulated programs in the nation, and more restrictive than its legislative sponsors had hoped, a necessary concession to bring Governor Andrew Cuomo on board.

Evan Nison, director of the East Coast cannabis division for Terra Tech, a company that will apply to grow and dispense the drug in New York, said while the regulations are what they were expecting, lack of direction from the state on exactly where it wants the dispensaries to be located makes it difficult to apply.

The state Department of Health will select five companies to grow and dispense the drug and each will have four dispensary locations, for a total of 20 across the state.

While state officials want the locations to be spread among the state’s regions and in areas where they’re needed, they haven’t specified anything beyond that.

That makes it difficult to determine where to locate their future dispensaries, Nison said.

“Without guidance, we’re sort of shooting in the dark.”

Compassionate Care NY campaign, a project of the Drug Policy Alliance, is unhappy with the program’s lack of an emergency access provision that would give certain ill people access to the drug now.

“There are hundreds of New Yorkers, particularly children, who have serious epileptic disorders that are not being treated by other medications,” Drug Policy Alliance spokesman Gabriel Sayegh said. “If these kids don’t get treatment to medication, they’re going to die. It’s as simple and brutal as that.”

Cuomo administration officials explained in a conference call with reporters on Thursday that an emergency adoption of the program is not feasible because it would have invited legal challenges to the state.

Administration officials said they are still considering “creative ways to expedite the process” but thus far have not been successful.

The group is also unsatisfied with the program limiting the drug to five strains, when there are dozens that people could use.

“It’s difficult to understand the rationale for this restriction” Sayegh said, comparing it to a pharmacy limiting its offering of over-the-counter pain relievers to Ibuprofen, and not offering acetaminophen or other pain killers, as people respond differently to different kinds of medication.

“To limit that is unfortunate,” he said. “We think it’s going to be problematic.”

The first year of fully legal marijuana sales in Colorado turned out as well as adherents could have hoped. Moving the black market into daylight netted the state around $60 million. There has been no crime wave; there has been no civilizational collapse, except for Democrats who wanted Senator Mark Udall to win his re-election race.

But life has been more complicated in neighboring states, and yesterday the Republican attorneys general of Nebraska and Oklahoma sued Colorado over the law, claiming that violated the supremacy clause of the Constitution. The lawsuit, readable here, is a little shot of cognitive dissonance for anyone who listens to conservative Republicans on other matters. First, most jarringly, it cites America’s agreements with foreign nations as a reason that Colorado’s law can’t stand.

“Through its exclusive Constitutional power to conduct foreign policy,” argue the plaintiffs, “the United States is a party to international treaties and conventions under which it has agreed to control trafficking in drugs and psychotropic substances, such as marijuana.”

Conservatives are more comfortable deriding foreign entanglements and treaties than appealing to them; but here we are. Later, the attorneys general make a series of arguments about the absence of a state right to ignore the feds. “The [legal code]’s provision at 21 U.S.C. § 903 that a state law is preempted when a ‘positive conflict’ exists such that a CSA provision and the state law in question ‘cannot consistently stand together,'” they write. It’s a position, sure, but not one often applied by conservative AGs to abortion laws or laws attempting to unwind the Affordable Care Act with exemptions in the states.

It’s also proven to be a loser position for opponents of medical marijuana laws. The “supremacy clause” argument has not unwound any of those laws in 23 states. The attorneys general now say that their states’ law enforcement agencies are being overwhelmed by the pressure of enforcing marijuana laws and seizing Colorado-grown pot. But that pot was being smuggled long before Colorado made it legal. Colorado’s voters found a way to take the pressure off of their cops that was a little more innovative, and lucrative, than the one favored by red state attorneys general.

Kansas may join Nebraska and Oklahoma in their lawsuit, the Associated Press reports.

Spokeswoman Jennifer Rapp said Friday that Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt has been considering legal action against Colorado for months.

But she said in an email that his office is still weighing its options. Schmidt is a Republican, first elected in 2010. He took office in January 2011.

HONOLULU — Fourteen years after Hawaii legalized medical marijuana, there is still no legal way for patients to obtain pot without growing it themselves.

The 2000 law also is silent on how the state’s 13,000 patients can get the seeds for plants they are allowed to grow.

Even as four states have legalized recreational use of marijuana through voter initiatives, Hawaii legislators remain focused on creating a statewide medical marijuana dispensary system, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported.

“I do expect that bills will be introduced on decriminalization and legalization, as always,” said Democratic state Sen. Will Espero, chairman of the Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs Committee. “But Hawaii’s not ready for legalization. The public is not clamoring for it. My colleagues are not knocking on my door saying, ‘We have to have it. It is now on the radar and it is gaining momentum.’ People are still waiting to see how things are handled in Colorado and Washington and other states.”

He and others said the emphasis on marijuana-related bills this session will be on creating a system that would allow patients to legally acquire marijuana through dispensaries on each island.

The Medical Marijuana Dispensary Task Force was recently told that if such a bill were passed, the state health department likely would need two to three years to consider the issues involved in and create rules to administer a program.

Karl Malivuk, a 66-year-old medical marijuana patient from Moiliili who sits on the task force, said he’s discouraged, calling the law on the books useless.

“I have no say-so over what is available,” he said. “Compared to the ’60s and ’70s, it’s so heavily narcotic. So I have a choice of being nauseated or totally stoned.”

The number of medical marijuana patients is expected to grow next year when the health department takes over administering the program from the state Department of Public Safety, which has a law enforcement focus.

And there are a number of complicated issues that will have to be addressed in establishing dispensaries, said Susan Chandler, director of the University of Hawaii’s Public Policy Center. She also runs the dispensary task force meetings.

“You have licensing issues. Who’s going to be able to grow it? What’s the fee structure? There are quality control issues and security issues,” she said. “It’s a very complicated piece of legislation. While other states have done it, we don’t have a quick administrative rules process and procedures.”

Until Hawaii creates a dispensary system, Chandler said, “We have a medical marijuana system but you have to begin in the illegal market. How do you get your first seed? You can’t buy it legally. That’s the strangest part.”

But passage is not a slam dunk. Proponents outspent opponents 12-1 on the state’s Proposition 19 legalization proposal in 2010 and still lost by 7 percentage points.

Key will be the ability of the major pot groups to operate as a coalition. One group – usually either the Marijuana Policy Project or the Drug Policy Alliance – has been at the helm in each place the laws have passed.

California is five times the size of Washington, the largest state so far to have approved the change. And uncoordinated efforts by several groups and individuals failed to qualify a measure for the California ballot in 2012 and in 2014.

“The groups are going to have to set aside their desire for ownership for the larger goal,” said Amanda Reiman, a UC Berkeley sociology professor and manager of the DPA’s Marijuana Law and Policy Unit.

Already, the Marijuana Policy Project, the Drug Policy Alliance and the Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform – which includes the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws – have begun discussions about the ballot measure’s language and campaign strategy, according to Reiman.

Polls show public support growing in the state and nation, and advocates have repeatedly proven much better at fundraising than their foes. With momentum on their side, proponents are targeting California and four other states in the next election cycle.

“People’s attitudes are changing and it’s happening much more quickly than we would have thought five years ago,” said Corey Cook, a political scientist at the University of San Francisco.

Relatives and friends of patients protest for the legalization of cannabidiol, a marijuana derivative that’s banned in Brazil, outside the Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA) in Brasilia, Brazil, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2014. The Brazilian government says it will study next month the possibility of legalizing the use of the marijuana derivative to treat people suffering from severe seizures. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil will soon look into the possibility of legalizing the use of a marijuana derivative to treat people suffering from severe seizures.

ANVISA, the country’s Health Surveillance Agency says in a statement posted on its website that the “reclassification” of marijuana derivative cannabidiol, which is banned in Brazil, will be discussed starting next month.

The statement came Friday, one day after some 40 people protested in Brasilia to demand the legalization of cannabidiol.

Some people resort to a clandestine network of illegal marijuana growers in Rio de Janeiro state that extract cannabidiol and donate it.

It is that network that supplies Margarete de Brito with the cannabidiol she gives her 5 year-old daughter Sofia, who was born with a genetic mutation that causes seizures.

“They won’t even let you pay the shipping” she said.

Brito said that since starting treatment with the substance over a year ago her daughter’s seizures have decreased dramatically and she stopped taking another medication that left her drowsy.

Earlier this month, the Federal Medical Council that regulates the medical profession in Brazil authorized neurologists and psychiatrists to prescribe cannabidiol to treat epileptic children and teenagers who do not respond to conventional treatment.

Brito, a lawyer and a director of the association that represents medical marijuana users, praised the council’s decision but said it should have recommended the national production and medical use of cannabidiol and other marijuana-based substances.

Nelson Nahon, the vice president of the Rio de Janeiro State Medical Council, said there is not enough research or information on cannabidiol in Brazil to guarantee its safety and effectiveness.

“We must be careful with any new product for any treatment,” he said. “To be approved and commercialized, medication must go through several phases, in-vitro testing and animal testing. Then it must be tested on consenting humans.”

Even though the growing and selling of medical marijuana was approved by the 2013 Legislature, the cannabis plant will take center state in the 2015 Nevada Legislature, lawmakers told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

“I personally think it will (be a big issue),” said state Sen Richard “Tick” Segerblom, D-Las Vegas. “The press will cover it because it is a sexy issue. But the fact is, there are a lot of things we need to do about it.”

Lawmakers are expected to debate legalizing recreational use of marijuana and propose a study on the issues surrounding DUIs, employment drug testing and how it relates to Nevada’s medical marijuana law.

“The big question,” Segerblom said, “is if we will take up the recreational bill in the first 40 days.”

If lawmakers don’t pass the bill to legalize recreational use of marijuana within the first 40 days of the session — by either voting it down or taking no action — it will automatically go to the voters for consideration.

The has already acquired enough signatures to place a proposal on the 2016 Nevada general-election ballot. If approved by voters, it would legalize the use of recreational marijuana in Nevada much like the current laws in Washington state and Colorado.

Based on Republican majorities in both the Assembly and state Senate, it’s likely voters will get the chance to vote on the question in 2016.

The passage of recreational marijuana would also need a two-thirds vote, since some taxation mechanism would most-likely be attached, some lawmakers said. Nevada law requires a two-thirds vote for all new taxes and tax increases.

Proponents of recreational pot realize that, said Segerblom. Democrats want to see the recreational pot issue on the 2016 ballot, anyway. They think it will help turnout of young, liberal and progressive voters, Segerblom said.

“So if they don’t pass it in the Legislature, it is on the ballot in 2016 and it is going to hurt (Republican) presidential chances, it’s going to hurt their chances of defeating Harry Reid,” Segerblom said, referring the the 2016 re-election bid of the Democratic Nevada senator..

“Frankly it (recreational use of marijuana) is strongly supported by libertarians and a lot of these new (newly-elected) Republicans (in the Legislature) are libertarian orientated,” Segerblom said. “And records show, every time you get marijuana on the ballot, you get a 1 to 2 percent jump in turnout, people who basically vote Democratic.”